My students are young musicians yearning for more musical knowledge. We are about to begin our 2nd year as a school. My students come from all over the district and drive or bus to our school to integrate STEAM into their curriculum. We laid the foundation for our music education journey last year! Now it is time to build upon their knowledge!
As a STEAM school, we integrate all subject levels.
Students make meaningful connections between music and what they are learning in reading, math, science, and social studies. We are constantly looking for new ways to connect across subjects and create hands-on, authentic experiences to learn, feel, and express concepts.
"Tell me, I forget; Show me, I remember; Involve me, I understand." said Carl Orff. Music education should be hands-on and authentic. I believe Carl Orff was a music educator before his time, advocating for a hands-on musical experience where students get to sing, play, and move. We strive to accomplish that with every music lesson at my school. Students leave my classroom having sung, played, and moved with smiles on their faces.
My Project
We are very blessed to have many amazing instruments in our classroom. However, there are many instruments that my students need to be a well-rounded music classroom. I'm looking to add some authentic instruments to the classroom to give students more unique opportunities to play different instruments.
The flexatone is a kooky sound that will add so much fun to so many pieces we learn and play.
It sounds like a ghost and the kids would be able to add that instrument to music to give it some fun, character, and ornamentation!
The seed rattle is an authentic shaker that can be used in a variety of pieces. We currently own maracas and egg shakers but I would love to have a variety of shaker instruments so students can see there are many types.
The Buffalo Drum is like the hand drums we own, but produces a very beautiful and unique sound. The students would be able to learn about the history of the Buffalo Drum and then incorporate it into many pieces of music!
The log drum is a very mellow and beautiful sound! Anything that calls for a wooden percussion instrument would benefit from the beautiful sounds produced by the log drum! I teach my students about pitched vs. unpitched percussion instruments and this would definitely help students to understand that concept.
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